polar bears – KNOM Radio Missionhttp://www.knom.org/wp
780 AM | 96.1 FM | Yours for Western AlaskaSat, 17 Feb 2018 02:45:37 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.459285469Chukchi Sea Polar Bears are Thriving, but Only in the Short Termhttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/01/27/chukchi-sea-polar-bears-are-thriving-but-only-in-the-short-term/
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 18:25:12 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=27290At some point, biologist Dr. Eric Regehr says, “a polar bear in the Chukchi Sea may not have enough days of the year on sea ice catching seals to get the nutrition they need.”]]>http://www.knom.org/wp-audio/2017/01/2017-01-23-PolarBearsPKG.mp3

If there’s a poster child for Arctic animals affected by climate change, it’s the polar bear. But the data behind those famous furry faces tells a more complicated story.

Dr. Eric Regehr is a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage. He’s the lead author of a new study on the global conservation status of polar bears. Assessments of the conservation status of polar bears have been done before, but this is the first one that takes a data-based, quantitative approach.

The study establishes a relationship between sea ice reduction and polar bear population numbers. The researchers then used that trend to predict how the world’s 26,000 polar bears will fare in the future.

“Putting together all available data, and making some informed projections on the basis of those data, do suggest that there is a high probability that the global population of polar bears could face reductions of up to one third or greater in the next 35 to 40 years,” said Regehr.

However, not all polar bear numbers are suffering, at least in the short term. There are nineteen individual subpopulations of polar bears across the Arctic. Some of these subpopulations are stable, and a few are even growing.

One group that’s thriving is the Chukchi Sea subpopulation, which includes Western Alaska and the Russian coast across the water.

“The waters are shallow, they’re nutrient rich; there are a lot of seals, ringed seals and bearded seals, out there for the polar bears to eat,” said Regehr. “And so, other studies suggest that, despite the fact that the Chukchi Sea region has exhibited loss of Arctic sea ice, that the bears in that region appear to be faring quite well, currently.”

But their neighbors to the East, the South Beaufort subpopulation, are declining in number.

“The continental shelf is much narrower, the region is less biologically productive,” said Regehr. “And scientific studies there suggest that the polar bears have been negatively affected by sea ice loss. So there is a lot of variation in their status across the Arctic.”

Despite this variation, Regehr says the decline in population numbers expected in the next few decades is likely to affect bears in all regions of the Arctic.

“Fundamentally, at the end of the day, polar bears require sea ice to do what basically makes them bears, which is killing and eating seals,” he said.

That means even healthy subpopulations, like the Chukchi Sea bears, face long term threats.

“Just logically, there’s some point at which a polar bear in the Chukchi Sea may not have enough days of the year on sea ice catching seals to get the nutrition they need and be healthy,” he said.

Regehr doesn’t know when that time will come, but he’s already seeing the bears spend an extra month on land each year. And there’s evidence that the sea ice loss is affecting not just the polar bears in the Chukchi Sea, but those that hunt them. Regehr says polar bear harvest numbers in the region have been declining for the past few decades.

He hopes that as polar bears in the Arctic continue to be monitored, his team’s study will set a precedent for more quantitative assessments.

]]>27290US Will Not Support Ban on International Trade of Polar Bear Productshttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2016/05/04/us-will-not-support-ban-on-international-trade-of-polar-bear-products/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2016/05/04/us-will-not-support-ban-on-international-trade-of-polar-bear-products/#commentsWed, 04 May 2016 17:13:45 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=22729 In a statement released last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it remains concerned about the commercial use of polar bear hides, but it says it won’t encourage the ban. ]]>

The United States recently announced it will not support an international ban on the trade of polar bear products at an upcoming meeting on endangered species.

In a statement released last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it remains concerned about the commercial use of polar bear hides, but it said it won’t encourage the ban.

“We are putting our resources into working in collaboration with other polar bear range states to address climate change and mitigate its impacts on the polar bear as the overwhelming threat to the long-term future of the species,” the agency said in its statement.

Inuit leaders and organizations from Canada have been lobbying the US for the last year. Polar bear sport hunting is an important industry to the Inuit economy.

Polar Bear sport hunting has not been legal in the US since the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972.

Delegates from across the globe will meet in South Africa this fall at the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or the CITES Conference.

The 2013 CITES Conference was the last time the US attempted to ban the international trade of polar bear products. Forty-two countries voted against the ban, and 38 voted in favor of it.

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2016/05/04/us-will-not-support-ban-on-international-trade-of-polar-bear-products/feed/122729Russian and American Officials Sign Wildlife Management Agreementhttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2016/03/25/russian-and-american-officials-sign-wildlife-management-agreement/
Fri, 25 Mar 2016 22:57:10 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=22089Cooperation across the Bering Strait was strengthened when the US and Russia signed a joint wildlife agreement. ]]>

Cooperation across the Bering Strait was recently strengthened when the U.S. and Russia signed a joint wildlife agreement.

Officials from the two Arctic nations met in San Diego from March 22-24 to discuss polar bear and snow goose monitoring efforts in Alaska and Chukotka.

Steven Kohl heads the Eurasian efforts at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and was at the meeting.

“So many of these animals spend part of the year on the Russian side of the international dateline and part of the year on the Alaskan side,” Kohl explained.

It’s for that reason that the two nations have met every two or three years since 1972. That’s when the U.S. and the Soviet Union signed the original environmental agreement despite Cold War tensions. Kohl says current relations between the two nations still aren’t getting in the way of joint management efforts.

“Things have gone very well,” Kohl assured. “On both sides, scientists and administrators are making a concerted effort to keep things going, even during the rough times the two countries are experiencing in their relations right now.”

James Kurth, Deputy Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, signed off on the agreement last week alongside his Russian counterpart Amirkhan Amirkhanov.

Kohl says the two parties plan to meet again in Anchorage this November. They’ll review survey data and set quotas for polar bear and snow goose populations. He says in the next two years, Russian and American scientists will also be collaborating on a walrus survey in the Bering Sea.

]]>22089New Nonprofit Corporation Forms on North Slope to Act As Single Voice for Local Communitieshttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2016/02/22/new-nonprofit-corporation-forms-on-north-slope-to-act-as-single-voice-for-local-communities/
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 16:00:50 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=21076(Nome, AK) – Leaders across the North Slope have joined together to form a new nonprofit corporation. The new organization is three years in the making. The goal is increase representation for the people and communities across the region.

For many years, leaders of various organizations, including tribal councils, regional Native Corporations, and even state and federal government, have gathered to discuss job creation, policy development and other issues in the Arctic. Teresa Imm works in Policy Support for the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. “The people of the North Slope felt that they weren’t adequately being included in all of the Arctic discussions,” said Imm.

She said outside organizations try to assist the region’s small communities, but often their help is ineffective, because they don’t understand the challenges of life in the remote Arctic.

“Discussion about the science or traditional knowledge or subsistence impacts or economic impacts should be generated from a local voice, not from an outside voice,” Imm said.

That’s what Voice of the Arctic Inupiat is set up to do. It’s a new nonprofit corporation. Leadership from seven North Slope communities, as well as the North Slope Borough government and the region’s Native Corporations, have joined. Rex Rock is the President and CEO of Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, based in Barrow. He’s also the Board Chairman of Voice of the Arctic.

“All the groups came together and said ‘you know, when we’re out whaling, when we’re out hunting, when we’re out doing things, we work as one,'” he said. “When you speak as one together, and there are more entities, it’s going to carry more weight,” said Rock.

Sayers Tuzroyluk, of Point Hope, is the Voice of the Arctic’s new President. He said members of the organization will travel to all the villages involved to become familiar with specific issues of concern.

“The problem we’ve had is we learn about things, and a lot of times, we’re blindsided by what’s been said by somebody else,” he explained. “[This is] a voice that we’re going to use really well, and it involves all the villages, so we’re not going to miss anybody,” he said.

For now, members of Voice of the Arctic will focus on making sure member communities understand the organization’s purpose.

Teresa Imm said priority issues in the future include potential changes to federal regulations on subsistence species like polar bears, as well as on- and offshore development.

]]>21076Village of Wales Starts Polar Bear Patrol to Protect Communityhttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2015/07/22/village-of-wales-starts-polar-bear-patrol-to-protect-community/
Wed, 22 Jul 2015 20:11:22 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=17458Wales is creating a polar bear patrol with help from the Alaska Nanuuq Commission, the North Slope Borough, the World Wildlife Fund, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. ]]>http://www.knom.org/wp-audio/2015/07/2015-07-22-Wales-Polar-Bear-Patrol-PKG.mp3

Representatives from four agencies arrived in Wales recently, equipped with 40 pizzas and a slideshow on polar bear deterrents. It was one of the final meetings of a years-long effort to start a community-run polar bear patrol with help from the Alaska Nanuuq Commission, the North Slope Borough, the World Wildlife Fund, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Events kicked off on June 14th with a pizza party for the Wales community and continued all week with training sessions and discussions of patrol logistics.

There isn’t a huge number of polar bears passing through Wales, but the community has had several close encounters. During one session, people shared stories of opening the front door to find a polar bear just outside and even seeing one chase a teacher into the school.

For Christine Komonaseak, school safety is a key reason for creating the patrol. She’s a cook at the Wales School and said she worries about students during the winter when they walk to class in the dark.

“The kids who have been beating me to work — I want the safety for them, because they walk from up here to down there,” she said. “The bears have been spotted by the parsonage, by the school. The one that they last killed — I spotted that one below the house eating on a walrus. That was the one they killed by the playground.”

The patrol’s mission is to minimize conflicts between people and polar bears for the safety of both. If bears do enter the community, the patrol will scare them away with noise, light, or non-lethal ammunition. Protecting the people comes first, but conserving the bear population is important too, given their status as a threatened species and their role as a subsistence resource.

When the volunteer patrol starts, as early as December, Greg Oxereok will be on the squad. He said creating a patrol in Wales just makes sense as a proactive safety measure.

“Safety should be number one, especially somewhere like this where it’s rural and it’s hard to get transportation and facilities,” he said. “It’s good to try to stop a problem before it starts. It just makes sense to protect and try to serve our community.”

For now, details are still being discussed — where the patrol will be based, when it’ll sweep the town’s perimeter, and how many patrollers will be on duty at a time. While the agencies are providing equipment like ammunition, radios, and a snow machine, the Wales community will manage the patrol itself. The IRA will take the lead, but the City Council and the Wales Native Corporation are also involved, with all three bodies recommending patrollers for the job.

Jack Omelak, executive director of the Alaska Nanuuq Commission, emphasizes the patrol is a Wales initiative. The community makes the decisions, and the agencies are there to help with training and supplies.

“We get our authority to work on your behalf from you,” Omelak told the community. “We don’t just take it upon ourselves to do it. So we need to be informed and people [from Wales] need to be involved.”

That includes letting traditional knowledge shape the patrol’s strategy. Craig Perham, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, encouraged patrollers to work with elders and learn how the community has dealt with polar bears for generations.

“Certainly, there are biologists like myself in Anchorage, and we can help when we can. But you’ve got that experience right here — the older guys who have been out hunting,” he said.

Oxereok, who’s 30, says he looks forward to connecting with elders through the patrol, especially since he doesn’t have much firsthand experience with hunting or warding off polar bears.

“There is a generation gap. And this might help dispel some of that distance between the older generation and my generation,” he said. “The more we can work together, the more we can grow as a whole.”

The four agencies will evaluate the Wales polar bear patrol once it’s up and running to identify what works and what doesn’t. Omelak said they’re treating it as a pilot program for a polar bear management plan that will develop over 10 years and cover the Bering Strait Region.

]]>17458A Picture and a Thousand Wordshttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/05/20/9131/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/05/20/9131/#commentsTue, 20 May 2014 16:00:56 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=9131Preparing for her departure from Nome, Emily reactivates her dormant Facebook account. She faces a choice: What experiences from Western Alaska can be shared with social media, and what stories are better told face-to-face?]]>

Last week I reactivated my Facebook account, and my two worlds collided.

I deleted my Facebook almost as soon as I got to Nome. I could not bear the prospect of having to do extra computer-oriented tasks in a place where there is so much to do outside, and, to be honest, didn’t really want to see what I was missing out on back in the Lower 48. Last week, though, I reactivated my account after I realized that 1. I would never be able to find a roommate next year if I didn’t have a well-rounded online presence and 2. I wanted to keep in touch with people that I’ve met in Nome, and Facebook is a super efficient way to stay connected (obviously).

Over the past week I’ve browsed through photos of weddings that I missed, friend-ed new friends, and checked out some essential fashion items that I’ll pre-order online and ship to my Chicago address. But I’ve also encountered some unexpected challenges: notably, how to maneuver the cultural differences regarding hunting and processing marine mammals. One of the first things I did to establish my return to Facebook was post a picture of a pair of polar bear skin boots that I saw in the Gambell school. After living in Alaska for nine months, I’d thought, “Wow, cool! Subsistence culture is alive and well, and those are beautifully made. They look pretty new, too!” when I’d seen them. The reactions that I got on Facebook were much different, though: most of the comments on the photo were along the lines of, “Are those real? Those had better not be real.” Upon reflection, I cannot believe that I did not anticipate those kinds of comments. I had become so engrossed in the language of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the importance of maintaining subsistence cultural values that I had not even considered that some of my Facebook friends would have immediate, knee-jerk, and negative reactions.

The polar bear boots are actually a pretty tame example of some of the animal processing that happens in Nome; for example, last Thursday I came across a man processing his nephew’s first oogruk in a parking lot. The skin was stretched, hide-down, across a picnic table, and he’d placed the head and flippers in a bucket next to his worksite. I stopped to chat with him and learned a lot about rendering seal oil. I also got some really good photos. But I will never, ever post those shots to my social media pages, for fear of becoming embroiled in an essentially unwinnable debate in my Facebook comments section. Those photographs are pretty graphic (a bloody seal head in a bucket is not something that one sees every day, particularly in the Midwest) and would have to be accompanied by an articulate, well-researched, cited, and somewhat lengthy essay on the importance and legality of subsistence practices. I would prefer not to use my Facebook page for such explanations.

Over the next two months, I will have to consider how to appropriately share my experience in Western Alaska with my friends, family, employers, and coworkers in the Lower 48. I will have to gather and develop succinct elevator pitches, short explanations, and illustrative examples, and be ready to defend those positions. Facebook is going to be a great tool to feel out which issues may not be completely palatable to Midwestern sensibility, and I’ll hopefully be prepared to address those concerns before I step off the plane in Chicago. I realize that I might be the only person who lived in bush Alaska that some people in the Lower 48 will ever meet, and I hope to represent this lifestyle and these values well.

This Friday on TouchStone (April 12, 2013 at 10 am) we’re talking about diseased seals. We’ll be joined by two special guests – UAF Marine Advisory Program’s Gay Sheffield and the North Slope Dept. of Wildlife Management’s Dr. Raphaela Stimmelmayr.

Tune in to hear the latest on the Unexpected Mortality Event. Start the conversation now.

What is your greatest concern regarding the marine mammal disease?

What do you think can be done on a local level to better monitor the situation?

Despite being a cheechako, I have learned a few things about life in the last frontier these past few months.

RAWR!

I would like to share some of these with you.

Snow pants: wear them. They make weird swishing noises when you walk. On occasion, they will also make you feel like the giant marshmallow man in Ghostbusters, but if it’s below zero and you are outside, you should probably wear snow pants (on top of your regular pants, on top of long underwear.)

No, really. Wear snow pants.

There are many different dialects of Yupik and Inupiaq. Most elders speak English as a second language. So try learning some of the local dialect. You will probably suck at it but people will appreciate you for trying.

Penguins in the southern hemisphere, polar bears in the north. And no. I haven’t seen any.

Pilot Bread is a gift from the gods. Eat it. Share it. Make sure it’s always in your pantry. If you don’t have any in your house, you can’t call yourself a real Alaskan.

The Sailor Boy in the box looks an awful lot like the Stay Puff Marshmallow man… coincidence? I think not.

6. Vitamin D deficiency is real. Take supplements or get a sunlamp if you must: don’t get sad, get glad!

8. Pick berries in the summer. Fruit is expensive because it’s imported. Freeze whatever’s left over for the winter.

9. If someone offers you some of his or her game, take it. If you have any game, share it. Meat is expensive. Sharing is caring. It can be fun.

10. Subsistence hunting is not a sport; it’s a way of life. I can afford to go to the grocery store, but many Alaskan Natives in the rural areas rely on what they fish or hunt to survive. This is a subsistance-based culture! For more on this refer to 8&9.

11. Double gloving is more practical than mittens. Mittens are super warm but come at the cost of your finger usage. If you want to be able to grab for your keys or flash a quick ‘peace’ sign, double glove it, man!

12. Don’t joke about the weather.

13. Don’t joke about the weather.

14. Ladies: cut off your hair. Okay, I admit, this one is not for everyone. Life here is much more relaxed and low-key. If you ever wanted to cut off all your hair for practical reasons, this is the place to do it.

Eva and I rockin’ our brand spankin’ new hair

15. Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card.

16. Sled dogs consume about 10,000 calories a day. That’s not really related to me, but dude, that’s like 13 sticks of butter. That’s a lot.

17. As opposed to the lower 48 where you wait for it to cool down to see snow, here you wait for it to warm up. When it does, it’s a heat wave.

18. There is a difference between frostnip and frostbite, and you don’t want either.